Ancestral Roofs

"In Praise of Older Buildings"

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Bath - phoenix rises

This wonderful house sits on a lot at the northern limits of Bath, Ontario. The ample lawn is shadowy beneath aged locust trees: massive old trees are always an invitation to look more closely at the age of the house they shelter. I believe that this is the house that was built in 1819 by Peter Davy, son of a prominent family in the village. McBurney and Byers in 'Homesteads' (1979) mention a house in neoclassical style that was built by Davy, on the north side of Academy Street. They reported that the house was "empty and desolate" though once "undoubtedly the finest in the village". Last night as I browsed yet another library find, 'Rural Ontario' (1969) by Blake and Greenhill, I viewed with dismay a black and white photo of this very house, with its fine lines still evident, its exquisite woodwork bare and weather bleached, its roof rough with moss and neglect.

Who were the visionary heritage-minded folks who saved this house from oblivion and in the process saved for all of us an irreplaceable piece of our history? I would love to know their story - and to personally thank them for the plot twist in this once tragic and all too familiar story.

Great Architecture quotes

"The sins of the Architect are permanent sins" Frank Lloyd Wright, 1914

"In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." ~Baba Dioum, Senegalese poet (Posted in January on the ACO Acorn online)

"It is forbidden to disfigure external decorations on private buildings through modern additions and to spoil historic buildings in an important town out of avarice and the desire to make money." - Theodosius, Valentinianus, Arcadius (309 A.D.)

"It has been said that at its best, preservation engages the past in a conversation with the present over a mutual concern for the future" - William Murtagh (1988)

"Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact". - John Kenneth Galbraith (1979)

"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines" - Frank Lloyd Wright

"Architecture is the art of how to waste space" - Philip Johnson

"Architecture is frozen music" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Photo Gallery

"Caught in passing"

Striker/Walmsley House 1868

Albert Street beauty

Fort William Collegiate Institute - "they don't make 'em like they used to"